Online classified website Backpage.com was permanently shutdown Monday.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led an 18-month investigation into the website’s Dallas-based headquarters. In a YouTube video posted Monday, Paxton said Backpage was being the world’s largest marketplace for online sex trafficking.
Paxton said the site was responsible for 73 percent of calls to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The federal government seized Backpage.com last week. That follows a 93-count indictment by a federal grand jury. The founders of Backpage.com and five others were indicted on federal charges alleging complicity in prostitution and for hiding the company’s revenues.
In the video, Paxton called Backpage a willing partner for sexual predators that made millions on the backs of women and children forced into sexual servitude.